1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to manufacturing equipment for manufacturing a variety of completed articles and particularly to such equipment which includes a plurality of dedicated product assembly lines for assembling a variety of completed articles, parts assembly lines for assembling products commonly, an entry warehouse for storing received articles, and a product warehouse for storing completed articles. Preferably the manufacturing components are located on a floor which is substantially on the same plane and is substantially rectangular.
When performing a layout of the manufacturing lines to manufacture mass production products or particular products, the manufacturing lines should be laid-out in an arrangement that maximizes the work efficiency of the manufacturing process. However, in the case of manufacturing a variety of products, there has been no authorized guidelines.
2. Description of the Related Art
As mentioned above, when taking a layout of production lines into account, a suitable arrangement of the production line is a feature that should be given careful consideration. And it is preferable to conduct the flow of the articles through the manufacturing processes uniformly along the assembly lines from a parts assembly process to a completed article assembly stage.
According to the prior art, for example, in a factory for manufacturing products for light communication, each floor of a multifloor building is used. For example, the uppermost floor are used as an entry warehouse for receiving articles. Then, the necessary articles are assembled in lower floors and thus the flow of articles through the various processes is always directed sequentially from one floor to a lower floor.
As mentioned above, in the prior art, it is important to locate the manufacturing lines such that the flow of the articles through each manufacturing process is unidirectional. But the flow of the articles through each process is not always so. And, as mentioned above, in the case where each floor of a multifloor building is used, if a conflicting or reverse flow is inevitable, despite the planned flow of the articles, it is possible to cope with this by the use of, for example, an elevator. However, if it is intended to locate all manufacturing lines on a single floor, it is preferable to limit the occurrences of the above mentioned reverse flow to a minimum. Further, in view of a positional relationship between a factory site and a transportation facility, it is favorable to locate both the entry area for receiving articles and the exit area for completed articles in substantially the same position. In a case as stated above, a problem is how to share the necessary areas between an entry warehouse which stores the incoming parts and components and a product warehouse that stores the completed articles. Further, in some cases, an undesired conflict may occur between the flow of one article and the flow of another article.